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There is the power of position, prestige, influence, manifest manhood.

There is the power of an adolescent girl’s sexual allure.

Both Don Meredith, the senator, and Ms. M., the teenager, came to their clearly “inappropriate” liaison with weapons. And they wielded them. Ms. M.: The erotica of explicit online photos, pungent texts and Skype foreplay, a girlish enticement for a married man to betray spouse and family and his faith as a Pentecostal pastor. Meredith: The ability to groom, with apparent charm, a ripening romantic thrall in a young woman of limited sexual experience, a virgin. His inducements included the promise of a reference letter for an internship program on Parliament Hill, appointment to a committee, introduction to “contacts” that could assist his paramour in future career endeavors, the possibility of business opportunities for her family.

But, on the evidence of an exhaustive inquiry by the Senate ethics officer, it does not appear that Ms. M was swayed in her choices by the dangling rewards of an affair with Meredith. She was in love, in that overwhelming way of teenagers that stops the world from turning.

And, of course, there is the fundamental imbalance of power. “At all times during her relationship with Senator Meredith, Ms. M remained in a position of relative youth and vulnerability,” writes ethics officer Lyse Ricard. “Senator Meredith engaged in a pattern of behavior that advanced an improper relationship with her, in which there was an obvious imbalance in power between the two of them.”

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In Canada, the age of consent for sexual relations is 16. However, the age of consent is 18 if there is a relationship of authority, trust or dependency.

Ms. M was 16 when the relationship began after meeting Meredith at a function for Black History Month held at an Ottawa church; he was 48. She was 17 when Meredith masturbated while Ms. M partly disrobed during exchanges on Skype and Viber; 17 when he touched her breasts and buttocks; 17 when Meredith first “penetrated” her with his penis for about a minute, though Ms. M seems under the impression this didn’t constitute intercourse, what she said Meredith called “a teaser”; 18, two months after her birthday, when she gave Meredith her virginity in his Ottawa hotel room. “Gm, baby hope you slept well,’’ he messaged her the following morning. “You are special amazing, awesome. Blessed and loved.”

They had sex just once more, in May 2015, before Meredith ended the affair, never having any contact with Ms. M again. “God has spoken with me and am (sic) not happy with me,” he told her via Viber. “I should be leading you not making you.’’

Ms. M: “It’s true, you are right and I’m proud of you. I’ll get used to it.”

Meredith: “Thanks for your love and understanding.”

But less than two years later, Ms. M took her story to the Star’s Kevin Donovan and the unseemly tale was published. It was not vindictiveness, an older and presumably wiser Ms. M said. After other media had revealed Meredith was under a Senate review over allegations of sexual harassment in his office, Ms. M was concerned that the complainants, former staffers, would not be believed and wanted her experience to buttress. It is sordid stuff, particularly in the methodical rendering of events as documented in the 30-page report issued to the public by Ricard on March 9, with nearly all the details provided by Ms. M, while Meredith, in his interviews with Ricard, relies on a steady drumbeat of “no comment” and “cannot recall” and “the salaciousness of a conversation has no relevance to this hearing.” On every article of disagreement, Ricard sides with the credibility of Ms. M.

In any event, any disputes are now a moot point. Meredith, who has taken a leave of absence from the Senate on the advice of his doctor, last week essentially accepted the contents of the report, telling The Canadian Press in an interview: “This is a moral failing on my part. As a human being, I made a grave error in judgment, in my interactions. For that I am deeply sorry.’’

Sen. Don Meredith says he “deeply” regrets his sexual relationship with a teenager and, in this video published on March 16, asks for forgiveness. Meredith says he is weighing his options after a scathing ethics report was released the previous week.(The Canadian Press )

This is Meredith scrambling to keep his Senate job, by throwing himself on the mercy of his Red Chamber colleagues.

The scathing report concluded Meredith had failed to uphold the “highest standards of dignity inherent to the position of senator,” acting in a way that could bring disrepute on the Senate, with Ricard ruling he’d also used his position as a senator improperly, violating the chamber’s ethics code.

What the Senate can do about it — censure, suspend, oust — is unclear, though several senators have urged Meredith to resign and spare the body an ugly public hearing, adding a further unsavory chapter to a recent history of expense scandals and criminal charges — dropped or resulting in acquittal (Mike Duffy), all of it again triggering debate about the constitutional merit of the unelected upper chamber.

It’s never before booted anybody.

Those earlier infamies led the Senate to adopt new rules of conduct with the objective of more firmly disciplining members who violate standards of dignity. But they came into effect only in June 2016 — after Meredith ended the relationship — and can’t be retroactively applied. Ricard’s jurisdiction is tenuous.

Ricard carefully professes to be making no moral judgments about extramarital sex between consenting adults. But that’s disingenuous because the sex — specifically, once before Ms. M turned 18, twice afterwards — is precisely what Ricard has evaluated, within the context of a professional code of conduct. Meredith’s morality is very much the subtext to his violation of the Ethics and Conflict of Interest Code for Senators. Certainly there is no criminal offence; Ottawa police opened and closed their investigation without laying any charges. There’s nothing to lay a charge over, foolishness and concupiscence not yet proscribed under the Criminal Code.

At this point, I remind myself of the excuses and exculpations many of us made two decades ago to absolve or forgive or temper president Bill Clinton’s sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. And I don’t see a difference — except that Meredith may have made pledges as part of his seduction. Except, as stated earlier, they seem to have carried little weight with Ms. M. She wanted Meredith, not what he might have done for her. They were mutually pursuing, although he, three decades older, with a wife and kids and Senate plum, stands utterly exposed for folly driven by lust. (And, having obtained it, so long Ms. M.)

Words like disgusting, deplorable, creepy — all of which have crossed my mind — are folded within a moral denunciation that makes me uneasy and, given the clemency extended to Clinton, hypocritical.

And then, a few days ago, Meredith — Canada’s first Jamaican-born senator — whipped out the race card.

“Absolutely, racism has played a role in this,” he told The Canadian Press. “This is nothing new to me. There is always a double standard that exists in this country.”

Sidling away from sexual exploitation of a naive teenager, by cloaking himself in the victimhood of race.

Shameful. Whether or not Meredith is actually capable of feeling genuine shame.

Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

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